Russian President Vladimir Putin will not hold his annual year-end press marathon this month amid the war in Ukraine. Observers attributed the rare break in long-standing culture to the Kremlin’s unease about a series of battlefield setbacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov showed Monday that Putin would not hold the annual press convention for the first time in 10 years. He did not comment on the underlying reason, but many commentators attributed it to the Russian leader’s reluctance to address unsightly questions about what he called Russia’s “special army operation” in Ukraine. The annual press convention used through the Kremlin to burnish Putin’s image. domestic and foreign policy issues.
Political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said in a video observation that Putin canceled the annual press convention because he “has nothing to say from the point of view of strategy. “
“The press conference has become a vital component of Putin’s public engagement program and was used as an opportunity to demonstrate Putin’s intention for integrity,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a comment on Twitter.
“While the problems are almost in advance, the cancellation is likely due to developing considerations about the dominance of anti-war sentiment in Russia,” he said. It can simply be kidnapped through an unauthorized discussion of ‘Army Special Operation. ‘”
Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, saying it aimed to “demilitarize” and “de-zify” the country, bringing up NATO’s refusal to offer Russia promises that Ukraine would not be invited to join the alliance. Ukraine and much of the world denounced the Russian attack on its neighbor as an act of unprovoked aggression. Putin and his officials had hoped to defeat the Ukrainian army within days, but fierce Ukrainian resistance temporarily derailed the plans. After a failed attempt to temporarily capture the Ukrainian capital, Russian troops withdrew from the spaces around Kyiv in March.
In September, Ukraine regained vast tracts of land in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, and last month regained control of the strategic port city of Kherson. A mobilization of 300,000 reservists ordered through Putin in September has so far failed to change the battlefield scenario for Russia. The mobilization order sent thousands of Russians fleeing to avoid conscription, and those called denounced a glaring shortage of essential gadgets and supplies.
In a rare acknowledgment last week that the crusade in Ukraine is taking longer than expected, Putin admitted that wrapping up his “army special operation” may simply be a “long process. ” At the same time, he continued to assert that the crusade was going according to plan and would achieve its goals. The Kremlin has silenced any denunciation of his action in Ukraine by the liberal anti-war camp, shutting down critical media and criminalizing the country’s dissemination of any data that differs from official opinion. But he has faced harsh complaints from Russian extremists who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and have called for more action in Ukraine. Amid a series of military setbacks in Ukraine, Putin hosted another annual meeting, a television exhibition in which he answers questions from the public to nurture his father-of-the-country image. So far, Putin has also failed to deliver the televised State of the Country address in parliament, a speech that he is required by the country’s statutes to deliver every year. The Kremlin has not set a date for Putin’s speech.